The following poems express
woman's varying roles and relationships, placing
strong emphasis upon self image. All ages
of women are depicted here, from birth to old age. Woman's
experience with family, career, love, need, passion mortality and her relationships with other women, are only
some of the facets depicted and which remain unchanged
throughout time.

Here too, may be found links to women's short
stories and satirical commentary, Between These Shores International Poetry Competition & E-zine, as
well as various women's literary websites.

Poetry of Women's Experience

Seasons

When I was twenty,streets rose to meet my feet,branches lowered blossomsfor
my touch and unbeckoned winds pushed me forward without destination.I had much to say for the seasons of love
and passionand the reasons for calamity;so much to be reckonedwhen dealing with questsand adversity

When
I was thirty, I found my way by lamplight wisdom.Tasteful decor was the key. Seasons meant warmer clothing,good
wine with dinner,a love affair with comfortand time, after all, time.

When I was forty, I rode a bike,cropped
my hair and wore my jeans in threads,while contemplating what had become of unbeckoned winds andlove affairs
with comfort.

Now I am fifty.Winds chill me.Branches stretch higher their fragrant swell.Lamplight wisdom
gives way to forgetfulnessand I wonder if tasteful decor is worth the dusting. Love affairsare seldom, if ever
comfortableand the only season leftis time allowed.

Maps and Lockets and Imaging Your Face

Could I but touch the silken lines of your face once more, drawn in pastel, sunset rivers, across
the definitive horizon of your eyes,

I would, Braille reading , quench my thirst for recollection in a mind
map, double and triple folded; compressed for safety in gentle, muted chambers, ready to open

on any occasion,
when the treacherous loss of touch and liquid melody of sound are far beyond my feeble conception. An ocean's depth
between us,

of bureaucratic suits and soulless uniforms, regulations and political agenda, of paperwork decisions
stronger than walls and bars, with no aim, but to distance.

I would keep you, if I could, like a locket, close
to my breast, warmed by it's gold and heartened by it's presence; never allowing hands to wrench you from me.

Yet
even if, as a map or a locket, you might be taken from me, my own cunning deception would quell the pain of loss; there
are always maps to be found and lockets to be had.

But flesh is not so easily replaced, nor do maps or pictures
touch my heart or fill the space, in a magnitude of miles and time, left by the absence of your face.

Greyhound From Portland

Night retreats, in the pursuit of happiness;

two am and three hours 'til departure,

leaving Longfellow Square a half day behind,

in taxi clarity of blue-gray stone

and trashy autumn's tawdry orange.

Outside the terminal,

fallen road angels cluster for a smoke;

bards of the highway,

telling tales of who 'did 'em wrong'.

Listing boats without anchor,

foraging friendliness

in the absolution of strangers.

Hungry eyes snare the small child,

as she skips the dirty tiles of the station,

waiting for her folded dollar treasure

to slip through her fingers,

plunging chum to the waiting shark.

'Have ya got some change, Mizzes?'

'D' ya got a smoke?'

Too old to turn away without feeling,

too same to share what I need;

I take my coffee as inhalation

from the coach driver's cup

and smoke my last cigarette.

Her Longest Summer

She always knew when it would rain,especially in summer.'See!
Trees blowin' t' the water.They always blow downhill, to the bay, when the rain is comin''.

Such wisdom, from
a red-knuckled seer,who wrung sheets as taught as fishing ropes; raw fingers burned with bleach, but for my comfort,
I never heard complaint,never saw a tear.

Blinding me with the steam of soups and sauces so rich, I
never knew we were poor,I never feared to sleepbecause she woke me with cheer;

an orange crate cradle, waiting in the coal stoves' shadow,a doll stitched from an old sock,a car with a shoebox chassis and a
string to steer.I had no dread of dreams.

Performing surgeries in the steam of boiling wash, the smell
of her homemadelye soap clinging to her hands,she sewed bright buttons, reassuring me there was no pain, as she gave my Teddy new eyes.

When she found the lumpthe summer drew to a close;old wives tales of the knifestrengthened her
resolve.She tucked a hanky across her breast and waited for the summer to go on forever.

At the peak of
it all,she raved and said I'd done it;had kicked her with my small, hard baby shoes, long ago. Easier to blame one she could see,than an invisible beast.

When she died
in the charity ward,by the dim light of the nurse's torch,the other patients wept behind yellowed curtains, waiting
for their seasons' end. It
was then I knew what terrors lie in dreams.

The Dressing Table

He drew his palm slowly across the smooth pine of his gift to me. Caressingly. Proud of his acquisition.
"You know", he said, "I'd been thinking of completeing the bedroom suit with this, anyway".

Anyway. How telling. How immensely
enlightening, the use of one small word. Anyway. As in saying, if I weren't here he would have chosen it, anyway.
Or more, if he no longer wanted me, he would still have use for the dressing table, anyway.

If it weren't filled with
my things, smelling of my scent and his, clustered with my colognes and figurines, laced with
my coasters, beads and glass; if my face didn't facet it's three mirrors, shining with
the trust of a child, he would still find need for it's vacant gleam, anyway.

East Side Birds

She was the banded dove, all pristine feathers; effervescently cooing at just the right times, perched demurely
where everyone could see, in the rooms where wiser birds, of lesser plumage, craned necks for crumbs of approval and suffered
rejected heads to shyly lower to their breasts.

So I remembered her, when she sprang, awkwardly flapping, from a doorway
in the rain. The years had stained her smashing feathers with city soil and deepened her cooing to a throaty whisper,
soaked in smoke and drink. True to the end, she eyed me with contempt, prattling on about friends and escapades of which
I'd had no part.

Working her twine-like arms across her pigeon chest, the rain drip, dripping from her nose, 'Well,
I hope we see each other again' she cawed, before I raised my gleaming, black crow feathers, and proudly soared a triumphant
retreat, to the heavens of redeemed girls, who'd finally gained their wings.

Photograph At Aberdaron

Closing my eyes, I can see the day you tookthe photo, which now sits
atop an oaken chest in my office;black and white barely doing justice to the tufts of golden gorse and heart-red
heathersurrounding the brilliant stuccoed walls;

a gleaming backdrop to my smiling image,as I stand at the
gate, hair rising,skirt blowing to a crest. I remember each detail, as the fog of din and drudgeryhave yet to
mute the edges of my memory, and I cling to this;

that when time's insidious toucherodes the vision and leaves
a watered canvasswhere the vibrance of facet once shone,when all else fails, I can still embrace it as a whole,
living it within me, feeling it always;

a warming coal fire in a Welsh seaside cottage,embers glowing at day's
end, dancing to tuneless rhythms, in a room with no radio,only the whispered music of two syncopated souls,

swaying
to laughter, too free to be feared,too soft to be missed and the taste of lager leaving laughter on pouted lips; simplesmiles
in the comforting darkness of dreams, a touch of fleeting tenderness, of fingers, face and form.

My failure to
see the picture will change nothing. It shall always be what it was;a lifetime search, to be had and heldfor a
moment, a marriage of soulsfor a fortnight, an imprint of a journey's end.

Johnny Nextdoor

He was two hands, brown as earth, clutching the top of a wobbling, wooden
fence between our yards. Two eyes, marble-black, meeting my green ones; gleefully gazing, curiously keening above
the splintered edge of eternal division,

as I teetered and tipped upon an old milk-box, toes straining skyward,
for added height. I never knew the mystery of his name, but called him Johnny Nextdoor and each morning, when
we'd been scrubbed, we met like midget conspirators, at the dingy, derelict fence.

His mother spoke strange, singsong
words when she smiled at me through open, uncurtained windows, where the heavy garlic scent of foreign dinners
played with my wiggling nose; tantalizing my tummy. Mother told me many times, "Their food is bound to make you
sick. Just say, 'No, Thank You'". I always did what I was told.

One day, to our great delight, he showed me
the remarkable, sensational snap, which elastic makes when stretching the waistband of his trousers! He stood
as high as he could for me to reach and snap; the sound cracking like a whip in the quiet of the yard.

Delightful,
it was and we laughed so hard, I never heard the rushing whoosh of slippered feet, before I was whisked away by
angry arms, my milk box flying away beneath me, it's crash culminating in a shout, as Mother told him he was 'a
dirty little boy' and he 'should never speak' with me again.

I was put down for a nap, not knowing what I'd
done. I supposed it was a dirty thing to snap someone's trousers. But how was I to know? I shuddered myself
to slumber.

When I woke to whispers and frowns, Mother placed a bowl of soup before me, and silently stroked
me like a hen, and I wondered, knowing the only eyes to look back at me now would be my own, if my guilty hands
would ever hold a spoon again.

The homeless board in droves,an endless ride on the river Styx;escaping
the sneers of commuters,they shuffle to the lower birth for warmth and sleep on wooden benches, thick with
inefficient paint;a sweetheart's initials and rude etchings of fifty years still showthem the pattern of their
pillow.

Breathing the breaths of manyfor heat, collars raised to their hats,with
one eye open to keep shoes upon their feet, while others hunt, grubbing cigarette stubs,diving like gulls in rubbish
bins for redeemable scraps.

Twenty minutes of silence, save the gush of waves,the steady lash of
sleet upon the portholes and the humming motors;life-song of a fleeting nomad,legacy of those destined for
Potters Field.

Dreamscapes shatter with the tap of a copper's stick,missing the bench,
it raps the closest feet. Docking, the Israelites descend the ramp to the land of Staten,and await the
manna distributed nightly in brown bags,from the Gods of City Hall.

Eyes open to a new morning, finding solace in snowflakesbeyond the glass; a testimony
of time, clinging with disguised desperation, joining frost tips to impassioned panes, with plaintive tenacity,

no
more tangible than unrequited desire.Christmas sky dawns on the warmth of couples, giving gifts of lust and love 'neath
a tree of plenty. Unwrapping the clarityof future surrealisms; ribboning extremes and tissued nevers,

Gazing upon a sea of grey, this winter morning offers
no less frost,than the coming of a new year, when parting leaves the soulto cherish even the chill of a winter embrace.
Winter holds no fear of death, while there are arms to enfold.

Soul Song

(For Phil)

Life's Song brings

us together

like dancing chords,

weaving beyond touch,

playing lonely

as a background

tone,

striking mellow pleasure

and tragic,

triumphant crescendos.

Till by chance,

the splendid weave

connects two sounds,

to form a perfect harmony

from almost muted achievement.

A lasting,

resonant note

of

one.

Traces

I always watch you, loving the glass pool; never draining the deep
well of self love.

I can turn bleak in an instant, just waiting for your touch; your look of approval, which
only radiates warmth when you see your own reflection.

I always watch you, as I scour, on hands and
knees, catching the glint of soapy puddles, expanding reason; light refracting loss, in swirling eddies.

I canvass the expanse of terra, where your feet purged me from denial. Once, I could dream a merry
future from a bruise; turn a slap into a brilliant tomorrow.

But there is no blood to forward the
delusion, only stains to remove, before my epiphany becomes public, my cleansing complete.

I always
watch you. You towel dry, all traces of guesswork gone; fibres and filaments washed down the drain.

Aromas
of Seventh Avenue and blonde highlights, a trickle on the tiles, a vapour on the glass of the medicine chest.

All thought of indiscretion vanished, but one finite card, falling from your wallet, like a beacon.

I
look,

I see,

and now, you watch me,

as I wipe it quickly away with my broom, as silently as I
wipe the steam from the glass. A moment's denial, before we embrace.

Changes

Another full moon,

another cycle closer to fond farewells of

hot flushes and bloated ankles.

Another quarter of

packing and sealing-tape

and tying tags to

precious packages;

dropping off shopping bags of old clothes to charity shops. Good will is
last season's sizes.

while
parchment visions descend to sand and crystal merge; shattering against the glass belly of a thunderous, whispering void;

questioning
why rescue ships have never arrived,while they waited and waited; lasting.

It isn't the cold chill of phantom
promises,but the warm breath of passionate reason, which brings

the eyes to wakeful redness, like disks of morning
summer sun and tips the scales of pain in favour of yearning.

Departure Time

My eyes are an afterthought of green steel beads, tumbling in tearful
torrents to the open, empty cup of my hands, nestling like the face of a conjoined twin, staring and helpless,
without true form or focussed thought, pulsing with the fractured gaze of mad women and frightened deer. Gasping
a shuddered, yet tangible sigh, I part my fingers and release them to freefall desolation, peering downward in
the dust at my feet;blind beings, overlooked and undone, as I walk away, feeling the sockets in my cheeks dry
against the burning wind of your receding breath.

One Man's Garden

As simply as a sundial, standing in a drift of sifting laburnum, yellow
shadow-stains stipple my breasts, with candour.

He swung out the window in one motion, leaping, catching the red, fire escape
trapeze, a ballet stance, descending, precision-falling, toes touching cement like an insect kiss.

Bounding,
breathless, through the back yards of Greenpoint, beneath ghostly sheets and frost-crisped jeans, whipping
helter-skelter ropes above the laboured ignorance of wives and wage earners.

He meets her, dark as a cat,
under the amber glare of a street light, between adjacent streets, her languid eyes having watched his small,
death-defying show, she slowly skims the whole of him, choosing where at first, her hunger shall direct her.

Midnight,
brings the chiming of church bells and the boom of fireworks, while one hundred windows rattling response,
yawn open to the coming hour, beaming lights on the frozen scene below.

All this plays no part in
the soundless intrigue of her wordless search, and he is released by her relentless exploration. She licks
the sheen of sweat from his dancer's thigh and sinks her teeth joyously in the steaming warmth of his exposed
flesh, and he, as from a Holy vision, hears a hundred angel voices cry, Happy New
Year !

I Never Saw It Coming

Bird boned and silky skinned,I sat curled in her lap,cheek tucked
against her free breast,

my book of Grim precariously perched against the other,sucking my thumb with
deliberation,swaddled in sweet stories.

but for that time,there was the succor of angels,infrequent
and quickly diminished tears,pouting lips and tender touches.

There was the tangible truth alwaysoffsetting
the delightful deception.

Christmas Eve 1970

Hurry, I said, I'm freezing, as the wind raked my cheeks with sleet, coats whipping
like wings. The coffee shop on West 4th sported a queue for a half block; hung-over, freshman from NYU, waiting
for warm revival, drinking dinner out of a cup.

Keep moving, I said, snow melting on my lips as I spoke. And
the wind blew snow in sheets and rattled my bones like anchor chains, while we braced ourselves behind collars, counting
pennies in our pockets for another cup, to stop the belly-rumbles.

Let's run, I shouted, and we rushed the
length of streets and avenues, slicing between the flakes, dividing the white like fish through a stream.

Quick,
lets take a bench by the arch, I suggested, rushing, breathlessly beneath Christmas illuminations. In Washington Square,
we talked of war and wisdom, Mao and Lenin and Marx, and the dreaded unemployment line, while a Salvation Army trumpeter
blared good tidings to the living and collected coins with which we dared not part, not even for a poor child's Christmas.

Hurry, this way, I cried, the wind pulling my voice to a whine, thin and icy as a jet stream. We shared a
bag of chestnuts with blue fingers, and wondered how the steaks tasted in O' Henry's. This Christmas Eve, we hid presents,
behind our P-coated backs and with too much freedom, tore them open.

Hurry, hurry, I said, anxious to see
your face. You first !, and my eyes, drawn to slits, watered in the chill. You pretended to like the pen.
I swore an oath to wear the pin. Goodbyes then, until we meet again; home to enlighten our parents, of that which
we thought they should be aware.

If I'd known next Christmas you'd be a ribboned, medalled memory of an evening
in the snow, would I have hurried so ? Would I have ignored my trembling, and relished winter's waste, and
stayed a bit longer, stepping on your lengthening shadow, reluctant to let it go ?

Phantoms

Corners, like settees and dishes,

are nooks for memory shadows;

mysteries of time past.

One place setting,

one rumpled cushion;

a phantom vision,

filling vacuous crannies.

A wind song voice,

a hand's touch,

in the whispered blowing

of a curtain.

Rising each day to see a ghost,

sleeping each night with an illusion.

There once was a party of two

within these walls.

Now my steps are soft as a wraith,

no louder than the promise

left behind.

Tread Softly, Here Lies My Dream

(A Mother's Words)

He was just a lad. He touched spider webs after rainand cried when his
puppy died. I remember this scene, as I part my curtains and watch, reluctant to gaze upon revelry. They're
all feeling gay today, those people in the streets. Of course, they didn't know him. To them, he was simply another
child. Unshared responsibility. Someone else's dream.

He played games, up and down and inside-out and
he learned to go away and never pouted. Brave boy, stout, marching in another's shadow. Stretching his full
height to fill the void, pushing pride to it's limits.

I wonder if someone might have said, "Lad, you're
a man now."and rattled off a list of tattered cliches. I wonder if someone might have said, "This is how it's
done.",then showed him the way and issued his gun. I wonder if that someone has a son.Surely someone must have
known, as I do now, as certainly as I still feel the pain of labour, that he was faceless in the crowds; slipping
through rows of booted babies. All blood being red, after all, who would recall?

No smiling moon, sifting
dream-dust on sleeping cherub cheeks,only another martyrfor the children's crusade. Like home, when the lights
went out in a storm, he died in the dark.

I hear beyond the curtain, voices like a stream,the women on
our street saying, "He was such a lad! Talking of pranks and silly annoyances, hadn't they already decided he'd
never amount to much anyway? Someone else's problem. Someone else's dream.

They've packed him away with
their linen and doilies,swallowed him in mincing bites along with their social teas and apricot brandy, buried
him in their rubbish bins with yesterdays newspapers and hung flags in their windows, only God knows why, and
I watch him evaporate like steam on a window glass, while all his little dolls weep for my lost dream.

photo by a. c. geraghty

New York Irish

He said, one day, he'd go there,placidly fingering pages on his desk,appearing
unmoved;the boy from Manhattan,now exiled to the coast of Maine.

Casting an eye at the closet,warm and muted tombof his mother's ashes,waiting twenty
years to returnto a homeland sanctuaryshe never found in New York,he taps a rhythm upon his desk,and makes
the promise once again,to send her soul homeward.

One day, when the time is right,and the weekly check isn't

already spent, the hands

of an aging son will release her,in clouds of free and painless glory;his pilgrimage

to the Emerald Isle of

her unkept promises.

A Pound Of Flesh

Two months out of work with five hungry kids and a shattered knee; hope
was hard. The ad read; ‘Caregivers needed. Will train. Excellent health a must.’ So I lied about my knee and
got the job.

They stationed me in that part of town where railroad tracks and empty barnish factories created Wyeth
landscapes. Two aids with pinched faces and late-night eyes met me at the door.

“She’s in here,”
said one and turned a naked bulb to light the floor. Five hundred pounds of flesh was she, my paralyzed patient,imprisoned
on a bold, bracketed bed; rubber sheets billowed beneath her.

Gangrene whipped us like dead things, in a shallow tide
and she slipped in her filth; a whale in an oil-slick, from side to side.The other two scuttled like crabs, retreating
toward the door

'til I snared them with a stare and a gunshot stamp upon the floor.Reluctance spared, in favour
of relinquishment, they worked. It took all three of us to lift one leg as big as me, to clean what we could,

from
beneath her folds of more and more, while trying not to look into her sea-cow eyes or listen to her voice, too small for
her body,well knowing if I did, she would cease to be a job

and become a life, for which I’d feel. My
crumpled knee snapped and creaked, making sounds of rotten planking, while

I sweated and pretended, straining
to hold her upand thinking the time would never come for me to leave.When pay-day came, my babies laughed and

slapped
their full bellies and licked their sticky fingers clean;but I could not eat. No matter how hard I scrubbed, no scented
oils or sweet soap, would wash away the smell of her pain.

Unrequited Dance

A frivolous dance, devoted to another,you pass like minutes sliding
into years.Disappeared, just playing in the sea.Would your final dancing be smalland just enough for a humming
hundred and will you never like my ballroom shoes?

Twentieth century dancing,too final for slowly humming;I,
playing devoted ballroom minutes,in the time of red shoes and slowly sliding;the last and small of it all. The
orchestra mirrors toward last century order.

Devoted to dance and drink, attention to red buttons and frivolous
shoes,you slowly passed the orchestra,never said 'No!' and disappeared towardwhatever last dance would be enough.

The Sheffield Wife

There is a home in Sheffield where I have never been. The floors are
blonde wood, the walls outside are brick and in the rooms of discontent the Sheffield wife hears the sounds and smells
the scent of many years of marriage.

A woman whose face I've never seen, whose name I do not know, touches
the sheets he sleeps on and comments on his clothes; shares worries for their children and talks about the news,
while passing the rooms of discontent, yet never says she'll go.

The man I dine with checks his watch and
says "It's time we go. The hours are short before the dawn." and the Sheffield wife waits home. In Spring, the
Sheffield wife will have their garden trimmed, so the man who calls me "Petal" sends a snap of a tender rose and
tells me, once again to "Wait just a bit more." for him.

In Summer, he and I will holiday by the sea, but
days, like hours before the dawn, are short. Reservations end and he "Must mind the store!", so in the end, the Sheffield
wife will have the best of me.

In Autumn the letters will come and one by one I'll read them, knowing that
in this scheme of things, and all in all, I'll wait; to hear his voice and feel his touch and have him call me
"Petal", but I will never know the sounds and scent the Sheffield wife knows, of many years of marriage.

I
dream the dream, which is all I may know. "All being well," he says, "I'll see you then." So on and on it goes, he
leaves again. Not a young lover, but an older woman, had behind closed doors, feeling first time love, living
last chance affair, what do I care for the Sheffield wife, in her halls of blond wood floors? What do I know
of the sound and scent of many years of marriage or the garden trimmer's prize? It's all to be, which in the
end shall be and this is all which I shall ever have. Oh, it's all over for the rest of us, but the Sheffield
wife endures.

The Other Woman

She was a replacement;

an item of equal means,a feast of reason

and flow of soul, this one younger than I, with degrees

to match his own.All flattery and sympathetic ear,

knowing I was just beyond a corner

for yet another year
and never a care that he

would come home to me, until his choice was made.

Always ready to share, was she, of the sympathetic ear

and sweet, flattering lies. I, who boasted no

educational differential

nor fifteen year age difference,

my youth long passed; she, still dewy enough

to face forty without a laugh.

I was held at bay,

just in case, the future partner didn't quite withstand the

test of time and place, but in the end, I'd be expendable,

all being well with her,and my leaving would be

braced with his words of broader partnerships;

of friendship, everlasting. Because of what a strong woman I am,

I would always be special to him,

though obsolete; a once loved, seaworthy vessel, now a leaking skiff.

Knowing
all this,

I now embrace his final choice to stay with me,

and let the replacement effort, dewiness not being half

what it's made out to be,remain a passing fancy.

So, holding his warm body at night,

hearing his words of love to me, safe within the familiar contours

of time and space which is we;

the tangible, yet surreal, I wonder, which part of it all

and certainly which words, are the myth

and which ones the reality?

Pleasure Withheld

I am the tamer,choosing carefullymy whips and rods,comporting
menace in stealthand boot kicking my objective.Down, down the narrowof the eye, I look and seewhat?

Coming
home to my adversary,I scrape the bloody sawdustwith my toe andtease the Tiger's ears with claws of my
own.

I am not so vainthat I do not see the labour of his recalcitrance,when I am a withheld feast.

But
this is the nature of the beast.I turn my quick defianceupon the face of the crowdand laugh to hear the
rumbleof frustration atmy back.

Sex On Stage

No questions asked. That we have lain together matters little. It stands
to reason, does it not, that we would have fallen by the wayside with someone else, if not each other; some other
seer; a vestige of unreality?

Only half naked, are we; too conscience stricken, gibberish-instilled, to release
a main objective. So we stumble through the bushes, clad in embarrassed glances and quick fingered meetings, before
the light of morning finds our much too childish sin.

Your fragment of soul I now own,was, after all, taken
by me; stolen in my mightiest hour of selfishness,and in so doing I have met my supreme hour of selflessness.

Well then! The Act! Let's run through it, once again!Let's take it from the top! Without promise, without
passion, without purpose, there is but one truth between us; that I cannot wait for you, withno questions asked.

The Mistress

He said I was just the oneto give him what he needs;the something
missing from his life.The solid sand,the tangible breeze,the liquid stone of his existence.

All works copyrited, including Between These Shores & Between
These Shores International Poetry Comptition & E-zine & Just A Thought: Words On Women's Experience, and are
the sole properties of A. C. Geraghty & P. C. Sidebottom, 2001, except where indicated.